Cool Sites

\"I don\'t think anyone\'s had more influence in philosophy, and perhaps in other areas, than Aristotle,\" argues Richard Ingardia, a professor of philosophy at St. John\'s University, in New York. The proof, Mr. Ingardia says, lies in a project to which he has devoted eight years: an electronic bibliography that aims to collect citations to all research conducted in the past century on the Greek philosopher.

Robert Teeter writes \"Arts and Letters Daily, the excellent site with news on the arts, literature, philosophy, etc., is back. It shut down last year for lack of funds, but now it seems to have been taken under the wing of the Chronicle of Higher Education. \"

I am completely blown away by this. The Shifted Librarian reported recently that information mapper Jon Udell had been playing around with a tool that would search for an ISBN at one of any number of INNOPAC-based library websites. He has since greatly enhanced it, and you can now find LibraryLookup here.
The site includes links to library OPACS from all over the world, and is no longer limited to INNOPAC. What you do is find your preferred library on the list and drag the link to your toolbar. Then, whenever you are viewing an item record on Amazon.com, BN.com, and a number of others, you can click on the link and it will automatically take you to that item\'s record in your library, if there is one. It\'s all based on ISBN, so it can be limiting, but it\'s still one heck of a tool! Check it out!

John Kupersmith has put together a site he calls Library Terms That Users Understand.
To quote the introduction:
"The purpose of this site is to help library web developers decide how to
label key resources and services in such a way that most users can
understand them well enough to make productive choices. It serves as a
clearinghouse of usability test data evaluating terminology used on library
web sites, listing terms that tests show are effective or ineffective
labels. It presents alternatives by documenting terms that are actually
used by libraries. It also suggests 'best practices' for reducing cognitive
barriers caused by terminology."

Troy Johnson writes \"The incorrectly named site booksfree.com will mail you two paperbacks postage paid. When you return a paperback in a postage payed envelope they send another book. For $6.99 a month you can have two books at once. This is very similar to Netflix which does the same thing but with DVDs. \"

Distributed Proofreaders provides a web-based method of easing the proofreading work associated with the creation of Project Gutenberg E-Texts. By breaking the work into individual pages many proofreaders can be working on the same book at the same time. This significantly speeds up the proofreading/E-Text creation process.

Bob Cox sent over a link to The Great Books Search Engine. This educational search engine specializes in scholarly materials related to Great Books, Women\'s Studies, and Lesbian, Gay & Bisexual literature, the related topics and files it uncovers may delight you. They say \"This engine actually gives you the results you need - assuming you are looking for intelligent information. \"

Ender poited the way to Reading Is Fundamental, a program that develops and delivers children's and family literacy programs that help prepare young children for reading and motivate school-age children to read regularly.
RIF programs provided 15 million new, free books and other essential literacy resources to nearly 5 million children. Last year, RIF celebrated its 35th anniversary and the milestone of placing more than 200 million books in the hands and homes of children most at risk of educational failure.

If you haven't stopped by Charles W Bailey's Scholarly Electronic Publishing Weblog lately, you really should.He does a fantastic job of pointing to stories (in print and on the web) of interest to anyone in our field.